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        <p class="pfirst">For four centuries the noise of controversy has raged round
            the cradle of Typography. Volumes have been written,
            lives have been spent, fortunes have been wasted, communities
            have been stirred, societies have been organised,
            a literature has been developed, to find an answer to the
            famous triple question: “When, where, and by whom
            was found out the unspeakably useful art of printing
            books?” And yet the world to-day is little nearer a
            finite answer to the question than it was when Ulric Zel indited his memorable
            narrative to the <em>Cologne Chronicle</em> in 1499. Indeed, the dust of battle has added
            to, rather than diminished, the mysterious clouds which envelope the problem,
            and we are tempted to seek refuge in an agnosticism which almost refuses to
            believe that printing ever had an inventor.</p>

        <p>It would be neither suitable nor profitable to encumber an investigation of
            that part of the History of Typography which relates to the types and type-making
            of the fifteenth century by any attempt to discuss the vexed question of
            the Invention of the Art. The man who invented Typography was doubtless
            the man who invented movable types. Where the one is discovered, we have
            also found the other. But, meanwhile, it is possible to avail ourselves of
            whatever evidence exists as to the nature of the types he and his successors used,
            and as to the methods by which those types were produced,
            and possibly to arrive at some conclusions respecting the earliest practices of the
            Art of Typefounding
            in the land and in the age in which it first saw the light.</p>

        <p>No one has done more to clear the way for a free
            investigation of all questions relating to the origin
            of printing than Dr. Van der Linde, in his able essay,
            <em>The Haarlem Legend</em>,
            <span class="footnote" data-note="01" id="note-01"><em>The Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing by
                    Lourens Janszoon Coster, critically examined.</em> From the Dutch by J.
                H. Hessels, with an introduction and classified list of the Costerian
                Incunabula. London, 1871. 8vo.</span> which, while disposing ruthlessly of
            the fiction of Coster’s invention, lays down the important
            principle, too often neglected by writers on the subject,
            that the essence of Typography consists in the mobility of
            the types, and that, therefore, it is not a development of
            the long practised art of printing from fixed blocks, but
            an entirely distinct invention.</p>

        <p>The principle is so important, and Dr. Van der Linde’s words are so
            emphatic, that we make no apology for quoting them:―</p>

        <p>“I cannot repeat often enough that, when we speak of Typography and its
            invention, nothing is meant, or rather nothing must be meant, but printing with
            <em>loose</em> (separate, moveable) types (be they letters, musical notes, or other figures),
            which therefore, in distinction from letters cut on wooden or metal plates, may be
            put together or separated according to inclination. One thing therefore is certain:
            he who did not invent printing with moveable types, did, as far as Typography
            goes, invent nothing. What material was used first of all in this invention; of
            what metal the first letters, the patrices (engraved punches) and matrices were
            made; by whom and when the leaden matrices and brass patrices were replaced
            by brass matrices and steel patrices; .&#160;.&#160;.&#160;.&#160;. all this belongs to the secondary
            question of the technical execution of the principal idea: multiplication of
            books by means of multiplication of letters, multiplication of letters by means
            of their durability, and repeated use of the same letters, <em>i.e.</em>, by means of the
            independence (looseness) of each individual letter (moveableness).”—P. 19.</p>

        <p>If this principle be adopted—and we can hardly imagine it questioned—it
            will be obvious that a large class of works which usually occupy a prominent
            place in inquiries into the origin of Printing, have but slight bearing on the
            history of Typography. The block books of the fifteenth century had little
            direct connection with the art that followed and eclipsed them.<span class="footnote" data-note="02" id="note-02">Xylography did not become extinct
                for more than half a
                century after the invention of Typography. The last block book known
                was printed in Venice in 1510.</span>
            In the one respect of marking the early use of printing for the instruction of mankind, the
            block books and the first works of Typography proper claim an equal interest;
            but, as regards their mechanical production, the one feature they possess in
            common is a quality shared also by the playing-cards,
            pictures, seals, stamps, brands, and all the other applications of the principle of impression which had
            existed in one form or another from time immemorial.</p>
        <p>It is reasonable to suppose that the first idea of movable type may have
            been suggested to the mind of the inventor by a study of the works of a
            xylographic printer, and an observation of the cumbrous and wearisome method
            by which his books were produced. The toil involved in first painfully tracing
            the characters and figures, reversed, on the wood, then of engraving them,
            and, finally, of printing them with the frotton, would appear—in the case, at any
            rate, of the small school-books, for the production of which this process was largely
            resorted to—scarcely less tedious than copying the required number by the deft pen
            of a scribe. And even if, at a later period, the bookmakers so far facilitated their
            labours as to write their text in the ordinary manner on prepared paper, or with
            prepared ink, and so transfer their copy, after the manner of the Chinese, on to the
            wood, the labour expended in proportion to the result, and the uselessness of the
            blocks when once their work was done, would doubtless impress an inventive
            genius with a sense of dissatisfaction and impatience. We can imagine him
            examining the first page of an <em>Abecedarium</em>, on which would be engraved, in
            three lines, with a clear space between each character, the letters of the alphabet,
            and speculating, as Cicero had speculated centuries before,<span class="footnote" data-note="03" id="note-03">Hic ego non mirer esse quemquam qui
                sibi persuadeat
                .&#160;.&#160;.&#160;. mundum effici .&#160;.&#160;.&#160;. ex concursione fortuitâ! Hoc qui existimet
                fieri potuisse, non intelligo cur non idem putet si innumerabiles
                unius et viginti formæ litterarum, vel aureæ, vel qualeslibet, aliquò
                conjiciantur, posse ex his in terram excussis, annales Ennii, ut
                deinceps legi possint, effici” (<em>De Nat. Deor.</em>, lib. ii). Cicero was
                not the only ancient writer who entertained the idea of mobile letters.
                Quintilian suggests the use of ivory letters for teaching children
                to read while playing: “Eburneas litterarum formas in ludum offere”
                (<em>Inst. Orat.</em>, i, cap. 1); and Jerome, writing to Læta, propounds the
                same idea: “Fiant ei (Paulæ) litteræ vel buxeæ vel eburneæ, et suis
                nominibus appellentur. Ludat in eis ut et lusus ipse eruditio fiat.”</span>
            on the possibilities presented by the combination in indefinite variety of those twenty-five symbols.
            Being a practical man as well as a theorist, we may suppose he would attempt
            to experiment on the little wood block in his hand, and by sawing off first
            the lines, and then some of the letters in the lines, attempt to arrange his little
            types into a few short words. A momentous experiment, and fraught with the
            greatest revolution the world has ever known!</p>


        <p>No question has aroused more interest, or excited keener discussion in the
            history of printing, than that of the use of movable wooden types as a first
            stage in the passage from Xylography to Typography. Those who write on the
            affirmative side of the question profess to see in the earlier typographical works,
            as well as in the historical statements handed down by the
            old authorities, the clearest evidence that wooden types were used, and that several of the most
            famous works of the first printers were executed by their means.</p>

        <p>As regards the latter source of their confidence, it is at least remarkable
            that no single writer of the fifteenth century makes the slightest allusion to the
            use of wooden types. Indeed, it was not till Bibliander, in 1548,<span class="footnote" data-note="04" id="note-04"><em>In Commentatione de ratione
                    communi omnium linguarum et
                    literarum.</em> Tiguri, 1548, p. 80.</span>
            first mentioned
            and described them, that anything professing to be a record on the subject
            existed. “First they cut their letters,” he says, “on wood blocks the size of an
            entire page, but because the labour and cost of that way was so great, they devised
            movable wooden types, perforated and joined one to the other by a thread.”</p>

        <p>The legend, once started, found no lack of sponsors, and the typographical
            histories of the sixteenth century and onward abound with testimonies confirmatory
            more or less of Bibliander’s statement. Of these testimonies, those only
            are worthy of attention which profess to be based on actual inspection of the
            alleged perforated wooden types. Specklin<span class="footnote"
                data-note="05" id="note-05">In <em>Chronico Argentoratensi</em>, <em>m.s.</em> ed. Jo. Schilterus,
                p. 442. “Ich habe die erste press, auch die buchstaben gesehen, waren
                von holtz geschnitten, auch gäntze wörter und syllaben, hatten löchle,
                und fasst man an ein schnur nacheinander mit einer nadel, zoge sie
                darnach den zeilen in die länge,” etc.</span>
            (who died in 1589) asserts that he
            saw some of these relics at Strasburg. Angelo Roccha,<span
                class="footnote" data-note="06" id="note-06"><em>De Bibliothecâ Vaticanâ.</em> Romæ, 1591, p. 412.
                “Characteres enim a primis illis inventoribus non ita eleganter et
                expedite, ut a nostris fieri solet, sed filo in litterarum foramen
                immisso connectebantur, sicut Venetiis id genus typos me vidisse
                memini.”</span>
            in 1591, vouches for the
            existence of similar letters (though he does not say whether wood or metal) at
            Venice. Paulus Pater,<span class="footnote" data-note="07"
                id="note-07"><em>De Germaniæ Miraculo</em>, etc. Lipsiæ, 1710, p. 10.
                “&#160;.&#160;.&#160;.&#160;. ligneos typos, ex buxi frutice, perforatos in medio, ut zonâ
                colligari unâ jungique commode possint, ex Fausti officina reliquos,
                Moguntiæ aliquando me conspexisse memini.”</span>
            in 1710, stated that he had once seen some belonging to
            Fust at Mentz; Bodman, as late as 1781, saw the same types in a worm-eaten
            condition at Mentz; while Fischer,<span class="footnote"
                data-note="08" id="note-08"><em>Essai sur les Monumens Typographiques de Jean Gutenburg.</em>
                Mayence, an 10, 1802, p. 39.</span>
            in 1802, stated that these precious relics were
            used as a sort of token of honour to be bestowed on worthy apprentices on the
            occasion of their finishing their term.</p>

        <p>This testimony proves nothing beyond the fact that at Strasburg, Venice,
            and Mentz there existed at some time or other certain perforated wooden types
            which tradition ascribed to the first printers. But on the question whether any
            book was ever printed with such type, it is wholly inconclusive. It is possible
            to believe that certain early printers, uninitiated into the mystery of the punch and
            matrix, may have attempted to cut themselves wooden types, which, when they
            proved untractable under the press, they perforated and
            strung together in lines; but it is beyond credit that any such rude experiment ever resulted in the
            production
            of a work like the <em>Speculum</em>.</p>

        <p>It is true that many writers have asserted it was so. Fournier, a practical
            typographer, insists upon it from the fact that the letters vary among themselves
            in a manner which would not be the case had they been cast from a matrix in a
            mould. But, to be consistent, Fournier is compelled (as Bernard points out)
            to postpone the use of cast type till after the Gutenberg <em>Bible</em> and Mentz <em>Psalter</em>,
            both of which works display the same irregularities. And as the latest edition
            of the <em>Psalter</em>, printed in the old types, appeared in 1516, it would be necessary
            to suppose that movable wood type was in vogue up to that date. No one has
            yet demonstrated, or attempted seriously to demonstrate, the possibility of
            printing a book like the <em>Speculum</em> in movable wooden type. All the experiments
            hitherto made, even by the most ardent supporters of the theory, have
            been woful failures. Laborde<span class="footnote" data-note="09"
                id="note-09"><em>Débuts de l’ Imprimerie à Strasbourg.</em> Paris, 1840, p.
                72.</span>
            admits that to cut the 3,000 separate letters
            required for the <em>Letters of Indulgence</em>, engraved by him, would cost 450 francs;
            and even he, with the aid of modern tools to cut up his wooden cubes, can only
            show four widely spaced lines. Wetter<span class="footnote"
                data-note="10" id="note-10"><em>Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst.</em> Mainz, 1836. Album, tab.
                ii.</span>
            shows a page printed from perforated
            and threaded wooden types<span class="footnote" data-note="11"
                id="note-11">The history of these “fatal, unhistorical wooden types”
                is worth recording for the warning of the over-credulous typographical
                antiquary. Wetter, writing his book in 1836, and desirous to illustrate
                the feasibility of the theory, “spent,” so Dr. Van der Linde writes,
                “really the amount of ten shillings on having a number of letters made
                of the wood of a pear-tree, only to please Trithemius, Bergellanus,
                and Faust of Aschaffenburg. </span>; but these, though of large
            size, only prove by their “naughty caprioles” the absurdity of supposing that the “unleaded”
            <em>Speculum</em>,
            a quarternion of which would require 40,000 distinct letters, could have been
            produced in 1440 by a method which even the modern cutting and modern
            presswork of 1836 failed to adapt to a single page of large-sized print.</p>

        <p>John Enschedé, the famous Haarlem typefounder, though a strong adherent
            to the Coster legend, was compelled to admit the practical impossibility, in his
            day at any rate, of producing a single wood type which would stand the test of
            being mathematically square; nor would it be possible to square it after being
            cut. “No engraver,” he remarks, “is able to cut separate letters in wood in
            such a manner that they retain their quadrature (for that is the main thing
            of the line in type-casting).” <span class="footnote"
                data-note="12" id="note-12">Van der Linde, <em>Haarlem Legend</em>. Lond., p. 72</span>
            Admitting for a moment that some printer may
            have succeeded in putting together a page of these wooden types, without the
            aid of leads, into a chase: how can it be supposed that after their exposure to
            the warping influences of the sloppy ink and tight pressure during the impression,
            they could ever have survived to be distributed and recomposed into another
            forme?<span class="footnote" data-note="13" id="note-13">Skeen, in
                his <em>Early Typography</em>, Colombo, 1872, takes
                up the challenge thrown down by Dr. Van der Linde on the strength
                of Enschedé’s opinion, and shows a specimen of three letters cut in
                boxwood, pica size, one of which he exhibits again at the close of
                the book after 1,500 impressions. But the value of Skeen’s arguments
                and experiments is destroyed when he sums up with this absurd dictum:
                “Three letters are as good as 3,000 or 30,000 or 300,000 to demonstrate
                the fact that words are and can be, and that therefore pages and whole
                books may be (and therefore also that they may have been) printed from
                such separable wooden types.”—P. 424.</span></p>

        <p>The claims set up on behalf of movable wood types as the means by which
            the <em>Speculum</em> or any other of the earliest books was printed, are not only historically
            unsupported, but the whole weight of practical evidence rejects them.</p>

        <p>Dismissing them, therefore, from our consideration, a new theory confronts
            us, which at first blush seems to supply, if not a more probable, certainly a more
            possible, stepping-stone between Xylography and Typography. We refer to
            what Meerman, the great champion of this theory,
            calls the “sculpto-fusi” characters: types, that is, the shanks of which have been cast in a quadrilateral
            mould, and the “faces” engraved by hand afterwards.</p>

        <p>Meerman and those who agree with him engage a large array of testimony
            on their side. In the reference of Celtis, in 1502, to Mentz as the city “quæ
            prima sculpsit solidos ære characteres,” they see a clear confirmation of their
            theory; as also in the frequent recurrence of the same word “sculptus” in the
            colophons of the early printers. Meerman, indeed, goes so far as to ingeniously
            explain the famous account of the invention given by Trithemius in 1514,<span class="footnote" data-note="14" id="note-14"><em>Annales Hirsaugienses</em>, ii,
                p. 421: “Post hæc inventis
                successerunt subtiliora, inveneruntque modum fundendi formas omnium
                Latini Alphabeti literarum quas ipsi matrices nominabant; ex quibus
                rursum æneos sive stanneos characteres fundebant, ad omnem pressuram
                sufficientes, quos prius manibus sculpebant.” Trithemius’ statement, as
                every student of typographical history is aware, has been made to fit
                every theory that has been propounded, but it is doubtful whether any
                other writer has stretched it quite as severely as Meerman in the above
                rendering of these few Latin lines.</span>
            in the light of his theory, to mean that, after the rejection of the first wooden types, “the
            inventors found out a method of casting the bodies only (fundendi formas) of all
            the letters of the Latin alphabet from what they called matrices, on which they
            cut the face of each letter; and from the same kind of matrices a method was in
            time discovered of casting the complete letters (æneos sive stanneos characteres)
            of sufficient hardness for the pressure they had to bear, which letters before—that
            is, when the bodies only were cast—they were obliged to cut.”<span class="footnote" data-note="15" id="note-15"><em>Origines Typographicæ</em>,
                Gerardo Meerman auctore. Hagæ
                Com., 1765. Append., p. 47.</span></p>

        <p>After this bold flight of translation, it is not surprising to find that Meerman
            claims that the <em>Speculum</em> was printed in “sculpto-fusi” types, although in the
            one page of which he gives a facsimile there are nearly 1,700 separate types, of
            which 250 alone are <em>e</em>’s.</p>

        <p>Schoepflin, claiming the same invention for the Strasburg printers, believes
            that all the earliest books printed there were produced by this means; and both
            Meer­man and Schoep­flin agree that engraved metal types were in use for many
            years after the invention of the punch and matrix, mentioning, among others so
            printed, the Mentz <em>Psalter</em>, the <em>Catholicon</em> of 1460, the Eggestein <em>Bible</em> of 1468,
            and even the <em>Nideri Præ­cep­tor­ium</em>, printed at Stras­burg as late as 1476, as “literis
            in ære sculptis.”</p>

        <p>Almost the whole historical claim of the engraved metal types, indeed, turns
            on the recurrence of the term “sculptus” in the colophons of the early printers.
            Jenson, in 1471, calls himself a “cutter of books” (librorum exsculptor).
            Sen­sen­schmid,
            in 1475, says that the <em>Codex Jus­tin­ianus</em> is “cut” (insculptus), and that
            he has “cut” (sculpsit) the work of <em>Lombardus in Psalterium</em>. Husner of Strasburg,
            in 1472, applies the term “printed with letters
            cut of metal” (exsculptis ære litteris) to the <em>Speculum Durandi</em>; and of the <em>Præceptorium
                Nideri</em>, printed in
            1476, he says it is “printed in letters cut of metal by a very ingenious effort”
            (litteris exsculptis artificiali certe conatu ex ære). As Dr. Van der Linde points
            out, the use of the term in reference to all these books can mean nothing else
            than a figurative allusion to the first process towards producing the types, namely,
            the cutting of the punch<span class="footnote" data-note="16"
                id="note-16">The constant recurrence in more modern typographical
                history of the expression “to cut matrices,” meaning of course to
                cut the punches necessary to form the matrices, bears out the same
                conclusion.</span>; just as when Schoeffer, in 1466, makes his <em>Grammatica
                Vetus Rhythmica</em> say, “I am cast at Mentz” (At Moguntia sum fusus in urbe
            libellus), he means nothing more than a figurative allusion to the casting of the
            types.</p>

        <p>The theory of the sculpto-fusi types appears to have sprung up on no firmer
            foundation than the difficulty of accounting for the marked irregularities in the
            letters of the earliest printed books, and the lack of a theory more feasible than that
            of movable wood type to account for it. The method suggested by Meerman
            seemed to meet the requirements of the case, and with the aid of the very
            free translation of Trithemius’ story, and the very literal translation of certain
            colophons, it managed to get a footing on the typographical records.</p>

        <p>Mr. Skeen seriously applies himself to demonstrate how the shanks could
            be cast in clay moulds stamped with a number of trough-like matrices representing
            the various widths of the blanks required, and calculates that at the rate
            of four a day, 6,000 of these blanks could be engraved on the end by one man
            in five years, the whole weighing 100 lb. when finished! “No wonder,” Mr.
            Skeen naïvely observes, “that Fust at last grew impatient.” We must confess
            that there seems less ground for believing in the use of “sculpto-fusi” types as
            the means by which any of the early books were produced, than in the perforated
            wood types. The enormous labour involved, in itself renders the idea improbable.
            As M. Bernard says, “How can we suppose that intelligent men like the
            first printers would not at once find out that they could easily cast the face and
            body of their types together?”<span class="footnote"
                data-note="17" id="note-17"><em>Origine et Débuts de l’Imprimerie en Europe.</em> Paris,
                1853, 8vo, i, 38.</span>
            But admitting the possibility of producing type
            in this manner, and the possible obtuseness which could allow an inventor of
            printing to spend five years in laboriously engraving “shanks” enough for a single
            forme, the lack of any satisfactory evidence that such types were ever used, even
            experimentally, inclines us to deny them any place in the history of the origin
            of typography.</p>


        <p>Putting aside, therefore, as improbable, and not proved,
            the two theories of engraved movable types, the question arises, Did typography, like her patron
            goddess, spring fully armed from the brain of her inventor? in other words, did
            men pass at a single stride from xylography to the perfect typography of
            the punch, the matrix, and the mould? or are we still to seek for an intermediate
            stage in some ruder and more primitive process of production? To this question
            we cannot offer a better reply than that contained in the following passage from
            Mr. Blades’s admirable life of Caxton.<span class="footnote"
                data-note="18" id="note-18"><em>Life and Typography of William Caxton.</em> London, 1861–3, 2
                vols, 4to, ii, xxiv.</span>
            “The examination of many specimens,”
            he observes, “has led me to conclude that two schools of typography existed
            together .&#160;.&#160;. The ruder consisted of those printers who practised their art in
            Holland and the Low Countries, .&#160;.&#160;. and who, by degrees only, adopted the
            better and more perfect methods of the .&#160;.&#160;. school founded in Germany by
            the celebrated trio, Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer.”</p>

        <p>It is impossible, we think, to resist the conclusion that all the earlier works
            of typography were the impression of cast metal types; but that the methods of
            casting employed were not always those of matured letter-founding, seems
            to us not only probable, but evident, from a study of the works themselves.</p>

        <p>Mr. Theo. De Vinne, in his able treatise on the invention of printing,<span class="footnote" data-note="19" id="note-19"><em>The Invention of Printing.</em>
                New York, 1876. 8vo.</span>
            speaking with the authority of a practical typographer, insists that the key to
            that invention is to be found, not in the press nor in the movable types,
            but in the adjustable type-mould, upon which, he argues, the existence of
            typography depends. While not prepared to go as far as Mr. De Vinne
            on this point, and still content to regard the invention of movable types as the
            real key to the invention of typography proper, we find in the mould not only
            the culminating achievement of the inventor, but also the key to the distinction
            between the two schools of early typography to which we have alluded.</p>

        <p>The adjustable mould was undoubtedly the goal of the discovery, and those
            who reached it at once were the advanced typographers of the Mentz press.
            Those who groped after it through clumsy and tedious by-ways were the rude
            artists of the <em>Donatus</em> and <em>Speculum</em>.</p>

        <p>In considering the primitive modes of type-casting, it must be frankly
            admitted that the inquirer stands in a field of pure conjecture. He has only
            negative evidence to assure him that such primitive modes undoubtedly did
            exist, and he searches in vain for any direct clue as to the nature and details
            of those methods.</p>

        <p>We shall briefly refer to one or two theories which have been propounded,
            all with more or less of plausibility.</p>

        <p>Casting in sand was an art not unknown to the
            silversmiths and trinket-makers of the fifteenth century, and several writers have suggested that some of
            the early printers applied this process to typefounding. M. Bernard<span class="footnote" data-note="20" id="note-20"><em>Origine de l’Imprimerie</em>,
                i, 40.</span>
            considers
            that the types of the <em>Speculum</em> were sand-cast, and accounts for the varieties
            observable in the shapes of various letters, by explaining that several models
            would probably be made of each letter, and that the types when cast would, as is
            usual after sand-casting, require some touching up or finishing by hand. He
            shows a specimen of a word cast by himself by this process, which, as far as it
            goes, is a satisfactory proof of the possibility of casting letters in this way.<span class="footnote" data-note="21" id="note-21">Mr. Blades points out that there
                are no overhanging
                letters in the specimen. The necessity for such letters would be, we
                imagine, entirely obviated by the numerous combinations with which the
                type of the printers of the school abounded. The body is almost always
                large enough to carry ascending and descending sorts, and in width,
                a sort which would naturally overhang, is invariably covered by its
                following letter cast on the same piece.</span>
            There are, indeed, many points in this theory which satisfactorily account
            for peculiarities in the appearance of books printed by the earliest rude Dutch
            School. Not only are the irregularities of the letters in body and line intelligible,
            but the specks between the lines, so frequently observable, would be accounted
            for by the roughness on the “shoulders” of the sand-cast bodies.<span class="footnote" data-note="22" id="note-22">It is well known that until
                comparatively recently the
                large “proscription letters” of our foundries, from three-line pica and
                upwards, were cast in sand. The practice died out at the close of last
                century.</span></p>
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